Scientists will use high-throughput techniques to identify materials whose internal structure changes shape in response to external stimuli like heat or light

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- An international research team has received a
$2.9 million grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research
to design nanomaterials whose internal structure changes shape in
response to stimuli such as heat or light.

Each of these novel materials will be constructed from three
types of components: inorganic nanoparticles with desired optical
or electrical properties; peptides that bond to these
nanoparticles; and special molecules called spacers, which sit
between the peptides and bend in the presence of heat, light or
other triggers.

When stimulated, the spacers will cause the arrangement of
nanoparticles within the material to morph -- a process that can
lead to interesting and useful effects.

Shape-shifting materials of the kind the researchers are
planning to create could have use in applications including
color-changing sensors and plasmonic circuits that divert light in
two directions.

The project is being led by Paras Prasad, SUNY Distinguished
Professor in the University at Buffalo's departments of chemistry,
physics, electrical engineering and medicine, and executive
director of UB's Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics
(ILPB). Funding comes from the Mathematics, Information and Life
Sciences Directorate of the Air Force Office of Scientific
Research, with Hugh DeLong in that office serving as program
manager.

Prasad's fellow investigators include Aidong Zhang, professor
and chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at
UB; Mark T. Swihart, professor of chemical and biological
engineering at UB and director of the UB 2020 Integrated
Nanostructured Systems Strategic Strength; Tiffany R. Walsh,
associate professor at the Institute for Frontier Materials at
Deakin University in Australia; and Marc R. Knecht, associate
professor of chemistry at the University of Miami.

The palette of parts the team will use to build the
nanomaterials includes spacers of different sizes, along with seven
types of nanoparticles -- gold, silver, silica, iron-oxide,
iron-platinum, cadmium-sulfide and zinc-sulfide.

To identify the combinations of components that will produce the
most interesting materials, the scientists will use high-throughput
experiments and data-mining techniques to screen and analyze the
vast number of possible combinations of nanostructures,
biomolecular linking elements (the peptides) and assembly
conditions.

"One of our goals is to contribute to the fundamental
understanding of how the spatial arrangement of nanoscale
components in materials affects their optical, magnetic and
plasmonic properties," Prasad said. "The high-throughput techniques
we are using were pioneered in the field of bioinformatics, but
also have extraordinary promise in the exploration of advanced
materials."

Zhang said, "The computational capabilities offered by
informatics and data mining will enable us to maximize the value of
our data regarding the nanoassemblies, to generate and to construct
new assemblies that span a wide range of inorganic and bimolecular
components so as to achieve desired combinatorics-based
properties."

To process the enormous amounts of information the study will
generate, the scientists will rely on the computational
capabilities of UB's supercomputing center, the Center for
Computational Research (CCR).

The project demonstrates UB's increased success in attracting
large multidisciplinary research grants, Swihart said. In recent
years, the university has encouraged interdisciplinary
collaboration under the umbrella of eight broad areas known as the
UB 2020 Strategic Strengths. The new research engages faculty in
two of these strengths: Information and Computing Technology, and
Integrated Nanostructured Systems, which Swihart leads.

"This project is an example of the enormous research
opportunities at the intersection of materials science and
informatics," said Alexander N. Cartwright, UB vice president for
research and economic development. "UB is poised to dramatically
grow research efforts in this area through the university's
recently designated New York State Center of Excellence in
Materials Informatics.

"The scientists leading this project are experts in several
different fields, and they are bringing their skills and expertise
together to conduct materials research," Cartwright said. "This
kind of collaboration is at the heart of what UB's new Center of
Excellence strives to achieve -- by drawing on the talents of
researchers across disciplines, we can pursue advanced and complex
research projects."